Snow White

I....

I feel drained....

Work was fine today - busy - but fine. Catching up on stuff I missed yesterday, running around like a blue arsed fly. Emotional too.

I got to leave early and returned to my icy street.

Weather in Cornwall always amazes me. We are a loooong peninsula sticking out South West to collect the Gulf Stream with all it's warmth and rain. Depending on the direction of things, the weather here varies. We have a backbone of granite with spiky hills, topped with weathered blocks and moorland. Weather gets stuck on them, literally, clouds condense and form rain all over them. These hills trap the weather in a way as well. Raining on the South coast? Go to the North coast instead. I look up and quite often you can see the edge of the weather above.

At the end of the peninsula there are two toes - The Lizard is the Southerly toe and Penwith is the westerly toe with Land's End. Quite often the weather on the toes is different to that on the North or South coast....

The biggest hill is called Brown Willy and is found on Bodmin Moor. Bodmin Moor catches the worst of the weather, because of it's height. Unfortunately / fortunately it acts as a bit of a barrier. Being long and thin, Cornwall has one really good road, the A30, and a handful of decentish A roads that are much, much slower. The A30 goes straight over Bodmin moor. If it snows anywhere in Cornwall, it is generally there. If Cornwall is going to get cut off, it is Bodmin Moor that will do it.

but well, the strange geography of Cornwall mean that the weather can always surprise you. It can change pretty quick, it can do odd things. Weather is very local down here. One friend told me that one day it was raining at the front of her house, but not at the back.

I was talking with a driver today. His gaffer told him that there was blizzards in Cornwall. He got all the way to Devon with out seeing more than a sprinkling. To many people Devon is out of the way but there is still many a mile from there to here.....

He got to Bodmin Moor, a sprinkling again, but nothing that caused any difficulty, nothing at all. He was a bit bemused by this point. On he came, Roche and his gaffer called and said, they are shutting early due to weather, will you get there by 4? You best turn back. The driver looked around him at the lack of snow, less than an hour from arriving.

He kept on, and all of a sudden, he reached the top of a hill and there it all was......

This snow seems to have come from the West and is worse the further West you go. Normally it is warmer the further west you go, and wetter. Not colder and more frozen.

One colleague at work was, it seems a bit snide about my inability to get to work yesterday, because someone else form the same town got in. But they lived lower down the hill, closer to the big main road, the right side of town not to have to go through it, did not see the gridlock surrounding my home.... Work today and the roads cleared nicely throughout the day. A few miles away, my street is icebound and treacherous and unmelted, even at the end of the day. The hill that steepens suddenly next to our house is only for the brave! (on foot or by car)

I have seen photo's from Penwith taken in the last few days and they look like they have even more of the white stuf than we do. The only thing I think that makes it a little less treacherous is the white stuff has stayed whiter and not half melted there. But boy, does it look beautiful!

This is so odd for Cornwall, which has odd weather by most peoples standards.... And Snow with thunder and lightning? I don't think any of us remember that before! Is it common in other places?

Dream Job

So last night, I asked my dreams to tell me life purpose. I think that was asking too much - too much information - more than is currently available. Instead i got information on the underlying question - about my job.

I dreamt I was jobless and I got a job in a local fishing shop on Saturday evenings. Only I knew nothing about fishing and no one much came in, so I sat on my butt while my new Boss served the sole customer - mudskunk lures or some such that I knew nothing about.

So the following week I turn up to see my Boss as I had heard nothing and he sacked me cos I had done nothing and was exceedingly unimpressive.

My cousin came to visit and wanted to go fishing so I took him to a lake. At some point my cousin turned into my love, who was local and part of fishing circles locally. This meant I got to socialise with my old Boss, around a camp fire eating fondue and he glowered at me a lot.

So it goes like this, every phrase and word is separated and examined for it's isolated meaning, these are then strung together and the message can be extracted....

So jobless = without purpose, fishing shop job = dull opportunity, saturday evening = gets in the way of other good things in life, not very busy = serves little purpose, sat there most of the shift = achieves little. This all turns into - Lacking in purpose, my current opportunity is dull and gets in the way of good things and achieves little.

Each part of the dream or dreams seems to form a sentence. The other three sentences are as follows - I am dutiful but lack support and am unsuited to what I do and then feel not good enough. Searching for nature, creativity, spirit and family. I may not feel like I belong, may face adveristy in trying to belong but through my love I will make connections and gain community and warmth.

Soooo I still loathe my job, i still feel stuck. While last nights dream gives me hope for the future it does not tell me what to do, what I should be doing. There are no answers here, a gentle hug maybe. I guess I am not meant to know the answers yet. I guess it isn't time to leave yet, but I so wish it was.

I should have gone to work this afternoon really - the snow stopped and melted a little. The roads were probably quiet. I am sure that I am going to get some frowning when I do next go in. I didn't achieve much staying home either. I ate some of the stew I made yesterday and surfed the net a little, oh and cleared down my Sky+.....

All I gained was some guilt and anxiety about tomorrow.... I have no answers.

I have always felt that I was supposed to stay in this job for some reason, that the time had not come to leave - how will I know when it is? Will my dreams tell me? Will my heart tell me?

Snow Storm

It has been an icky cold weekend....

Today is a work day and I should be at work.

I woke early and got up at quarter to seven. We have a big window on our landing and all I could see was snow. I let the dog out, got a drink and crawled back to bed. Then something even more unusual than snow happened. Lightning and thunder - with snow! I never remember that happening before. A snow storm....

So I contacted my Boss, not much help there.

I figured I should set about going to work....

I live on a long street, parallel to the main road, I live at one end of it and over the weekend, my car was parked on the end which slopes. I got outside to find a small lorry half blocking my road, wheel spinning in the slush until it slid back against the kerb. I had to roll down the hill a little, towards the van, reversing in to my road a little. I then had to pull out of my road and slid down hill to the main road.

It then took me 15 minutes to get to the end of that. Nothing was moving at the roundabout much. Town was gridlocked. I bypassed the traffic by turning right, called my Boss and then came home. My Boss was battling in, they don't have to go through town to get there but the going was tough....

So now I am at home, knowing that some people have made it to work, knowing that as long as work is open, I am not going to be paid for today. I am not sure how I feel about today. The thunder and lightning came back and the snow never really stopped.... It is cold. Should I feel guilty for not going to work?

Hardly any cars on my street have moved, plenty of other people have not moved. I am not sure I would have been doing anything that important today, if I had been there and I did start to go.....

Frost Full Moon Dreamboard

I did this on the full moon but only got round to scanning it today....

Go here to see more with the wonderful Jamie Ridler.

Reason

OK so I had four separate dream experiences that I could remember. I followed the process of writing them as phrases or words and then looking at each phrase or word separately for what it means to me. Then you string these meanings together to find the message....

Sounds simple right? I think this needs practice - the parts of my mind will learn together how to make the messages clearer. I will learn my inner symbols in time and this should all become easier?

For instance the other night there were two separate dreams involving lost, hurt, needy dogs.... Last night I was walking in the city in two separate dreams. I think the city represents my mind. Memories, knowledge and experiences neatly organised into high rise buildings, connected by roads and underpasses....

So these are my four messages from my dreams...

• Look in the unconscious for real, concrete potential for life, look for solidity and strength.
• If you dig at things sometimes there are forces working against you, the shadow. You have to work at things from behind but you will have help and there will be cleansing.
• Some problems, the unconscious mind does not perceive as danger. You may look for explanations but sometimes it is not time for you to know consciously but your higher consciousness knows and is working on the problem.
• I am learning to bring together my unconscious parts for nourishment and pleasure. There will be guides here as to who I want to be, this is a gateway to learning.

So how does this all relate to the dream subject I was incubating? The problem of my energy levels - why am I always tired? What is wrong with me?

and the answer? Not very simple is it? but sorting out my energy levels is obviously no easy problem. Re looking at my dreams is interesting as the interpretation is changing as I read and think and this is how it comes together.

The problem and the solution lie in my unconscious. The unconscious is responsible for all the automatic processes of the body and mind and something that they are doing automatically is causing problems, now my higher conscious knows there is a problem it is working on it. Much of the solution lies in my unconscious, look for strength and solidity and learn to bring aspects of my unconscious together. My shadow is working against me but in facing him, there will be cleansing.

The dreams themselves are not important because, to you they would mean something very different.....

False Awakening

I am beginning to wonder why my dreaming progress is so quick. Is it just that it was the right time - years of curiousity about my special dreams, coupled with a healthy dose of intention? Is it a gift from spirit? A natural talent? Something I am remembering from a past life?

And it is quick - a week ago I was lucky if I was aware of one dream a night!

Last night, i thought at some point in the night how I had not had any dreams and I was a bit disappointed - and then I remembered them. I had gone to sleep with the stated intention of receiving some answers about my lack of energy. Now I need to interpret the dreams I remember from last night.

I am starting to understand that for me the line between dreaming and waking is somewhat blurred already. I think while I am a sleep and remember those thoughts. I can have reached a conclusion about a dream or something and remember it when I wake and know that I thought it. I have rewritten the ends of dreams previously, consciously.

One thing I have read is that there is no point trying to develop lucid dreaming until you can remember two dreams per night because what is the point in dreaming lucidly if you can not remember it? The experiences of the writers of the book suggested that it would be obvious that you were lucid dreaming - they woke themselves up with their own excitement.

I woke up this morning with the possibility that I started lucid dreaming and woke up straight away after. I have just read something on Wikipedia that gives another possibility, one not mentioned in my book - false awakening.

It seems that a lot of people who dream lucidly, dream they wake up. This is quite a cunning way of dreams trapping us! It can however lead to bedwetting and the like because people think they are awake, but they are not....

So last night I was asleep, I was dreaming and I remember thinking 'I AM DREAMING!' but then nothing happened, the dream stopped. I was just lying there with my eyes shut so I thought oh well, I was obviously awake, opened my eyes, shut them and went back to sleep. Except, I am not convinced I was awake.... I wonder what would have happened if I had gotten up? Gone out? Would I have felt cold snow under my feet?

I never expected my first lucid dream world to be just like this one. I never expected nothing to happen!

Clearly though, this dreaming, there is a lot to learn, no matter how smoothly things appear to be going, how quickly....

But I also have to work out my own personal symbology for the dreams I had last night and I don't think that is any simple thing...

Dream BIG

I wrote this post on the BIG blog today and thought I would post it here as well..... Even though a lot of this is not so new here...

Something has opened inside me. A door, a flood gate. But open all the same, no matter what it is. The change has not happened in my waking life, but in my dream life.

I have always had the occasional powerful dream. A couple of years ago for instance I had a dream where I had two beautiful big guardian dogs and some firm authoritative figure wanted to take one of them. Three weeks later one of my two beloved dogs, slipped and couldn't walk properly. On going to the vet it turned out that a bone cancer had been hidden in his shoulder joint...

Suddenly this last week or two, my dreams have been picking up a pace, not just the normal dream drivel either but the occasional dream of the other sort to. One morning I dreamt someone was telling me I should learn only one thing at a time and I had a choice. I saw a book and each page was something I could learn. The first was cooking (I can cook just fine but I don't think it meant THAT sort of cooking...) a few pages I can not remember and then a page entitled dreaming. And then my beloved's alarm went off...

I bought a book called Dreaming Realities by Julie Silverthorn and John Overdurf and this has been very interesting so far. Obviously I can not share all the material here but it can be divided into parts, the first part deals with the science of sleep, the second with some techniques and the third with more detailed instructions. The techniques I have read about so far are incubation, interpretation and lucid dreaming but it is incubation and interpretation I wanted to talk about here...

because it reminded me of BIG.

Incubation is all about asking your dreams questions. Interpretation is all about understanding your own personal symbology. The book talks about dreams being from the higher consciousness. The message goes through to the unconscious which turns it into a dream which the conscious mind can interpret. I think that what we have learnt in BIG is the same thing, except the unconscious turns the message into art....

So I am working on my art and my dreaming and they are kind of meeting in the middle. I have no idea where the two will take me, for surely my life can not remain unchanged with such forces at work?

Fanatic

I love people with thoughts and opinions. I love people who can have a discussion. I don't neccessarily want them to end up agreeing with me. I want to be able to talk and discuss. I want them not to get frustrated and angry that I don't come round to their point of view. I want to be able to end a good discussion with an amicable agreement to disagree or agree or anything inbetween as appropriate.

People have a right to believe whatever they want. I can quite often see both sides of the fence. The world is full of grey, very few things are truly white or black. It is the shades of grey that make everything else look more beautiful. The shades of grey are beautiful.

Every so often, a lovely reasonable person, with interesting views and opinions takes that step. That step to far (as far as I am concerned) and becomes a fanatic. Fanaticism by it's very nature excludes other viewpoints, refuses to accept others may have any validity to their point of view. Fanatics often get so wrapped up in whatever they are fanatical about that all else gets excluded from their lives, it is an unhealthy, unbalanced way to be.

We all have things we can be a little fanatical about and the use of that word is like a little warning bell, be careful, watch your step, this is becoming unhealthy.

But.....

We need fanatics. They are utterly fearless, they challenge society, they make things change by their severe determination. If you belong to the same religion as your fanatic you would perceive them as being right. If you are a fellow environmentalist, then fanatical environmentalism seems brave and right.

But...

Fanatics have to have ethics mixed up with their fanatical viewpoints. They have to have limits to what they will do in pursuit of their views. They need to have sympathy for human frailities.

I believe in the environmental cause. I really do, scientifically, to me, so much of it makes sense. I want to live a more environmentally friendly life. I am happy to accept half measures. A company that has tackled one environmental aspect can be supported. They are more worthy than the company who pays environmental causes no heed but probably a lot more accessible to the average member of the public than a solution which is entirely great in it's environmental credentials.

I would love to live in an eco-house but they cost money. I have done some things.... we have loft insulation and double glazing. We use energy saving lightbulbs (and have for years). We turn off lights. We use Ecover washing products. I use Lush toiletries whenever I can. We recycle. We have a whole bunch of secondhand items in our home. Progress is slow but one day, one day we will make another step. These little steps are all valuable in their own right. Imagine if everyone was able to make these few steps that I have?

But to the fanatic, my little steps probably don't count for much.


(and I have no idea where todays subject came from or why.)

Homesick

Sometimes I feel like a bad daughter, a bad aunt, a bad sister.....

My family are so far away and I miss them but I am awful at keeping in contact with them. They know me and they know I am bad at keeping in contact. And when it comes down to it, I got this from somewhere..... They are used to late present parcels as well....

But when I speak to them I get to hear their pain, their underlying problems, and I can't help but wonder if I was a better Aunt, a better Sister, a better Daughter, if things would be better? But there problems are things I can not solve, I can not change, it is just life. Living closer would not change it.

I could hear them all talking in the background as the family split in two, those staying and those returning to their own home and there was so much laughter. I think that living on top of each other for so long, they don't necessarily see and appreciate all these little things that I miss so much.

And I do miss them. Sometimes I get so lonely. I have the fantastic F but he works shifts. And I have friends but they all have their own lives... their children, their horse, their second job. I would love to be able to pop to the shops with my Sister, join my Mum for a walk, go and do some dog things with my Dad, listen to music and dance with my niece and play on computers with my nephew.

The little things of life.

Family.

Day Dream

I read last night that you need to be at the point where you can recall at least one dream a night before you start stepping further forward on the dreaming path. So last night I dreamt. I had a single dream last night. Well sort of. It was one dream across more than one period of dream sleep. Kind of unusual for me to remember that and for it to carry on.

What counts as lucid dreaming? I was aware, I think that I was dreaming. I was able to work out some of the inconsistencies of my dream while asleep, without stopping the dream, just sitting back and seeing where it went. But despite all that, it did not feel very conscious at all. It was not a vibrant, strong dream.

Not an interesting one really, not one I would be very bothered about remembering or writing down. Should I make an effort to write such dreams down? Should I lie still and cling to those dream details desperately before they fade ad I can move?

I am sure most of the world has heard that Prince William is getting married to a lady called Kate. William is nicknamed Wills. My dream was all about Kate and Wills. Except Wills became Will, a boy I knew and had a huge crush on when I was a teen. In the dream The Prince had turned into some wierd combination of the two. I had a conversation with Kate about what he was like when he was younger, this boy who lived across the field. And that is the only real detail that has stuck this long.

I guess I should try hard with all my dreams right now, seeing as I am trying to learn more. But where do I want dreaming to take me? What are the benefits of lucid dreaming? Is that where I should be trying to get? I picked up Carlos Castenada this morning and flicked through and I can not say as I want to go the same places he went.

You know, my dreams are much more interesting than my waking life right now....

Dreaming

I could feel a voice talking to me (feel rather than hear because I could not tell you what the voice sounded like, it just was). The voice told me that I should only try to learn one thing at a time and that I had a choice. There was a book, a witches book of knowledge. The pages started to turn so I could see the headings of each, like being shown a prospectus. I remember the first I saw was cooking - I guess the art of the Kitchen Witch? The next few pages didn't get my juices flowing because I could not remember what the topics were, although I have no doubt there were topics there. And then came the page with the title Dreaming and my heart leapt. And in that moment, some music blared and dragged me from my sleep. I lay there, listening to F's alarm and feeling the light of the moon on my face from the window.

I have been happy all day, because of that dream.

I believe that you can learn things, but in order to be really good at something, you have to have an aptitude. I guess the dream explained what has started happening with my dreams this last week or so. I have always been a strong dreamer but things seem to be getting stronger. It also made it very clear that everything is my choice and that struck a cord as well....

I never understood what happened last year. On my birthday I seemed to be sinking deeper in to it all. I found my stang, made of rowan. It all felt powerful and then all of a sudden I was so ill and I felt this urge to walk away again. Then I chose to come back and suddenly everything is kicking off again, more than before. I don't fully understand what was going on with this year away but I think there is a strong link to choice here. I guess I could have stayed at the level of faith I was at but I stepped forward and I claimed myself as a green witch.

Now two things have been sparking stuff I believe this last few weeks - firstly BIG has taught me how to use art to explore myself and ask questions and some of the things coming back have been real interesting. Secondly, I bought a crystal pendant in the shape of a quarter moon. I have started wearing it all the time, tied on a waxed cotton thong.

Back to BIG - my current picture is of ME or of some aspects of me or even possibilities of me. I was bemused to find her arms cradling her head and that to the knowledge that she was in repose, maybe asleep. Now I know she is asleep, but not blind, not unseeing. Sleep is such a big part of who I am.

So what does dreaming mean? I have no idea really. I know my dreams are rich in symbology. I know sometimes they give me warnings. I know sometimes they try to help. It may take me my entire life to learn, who knows.

The first book that came to mind is Carlos Castaneda's The Art of Dreaming. I believe I have it somewhere. I never read it, although I read his other books. I don't know why, maybe the time was wrong. But now I need to find it. I also ordered another online tonight - Dreaming Realities. I shall start exploring the meaning of dreaming there and trying to learn how I can be a better, fuller dreamer and what that means.

Maybe one day I will get to see some of the other pages of that book and delve within it again. Maybe the skills of a kitchen witch will call to me one day. Strange really, you hear of many witchy aspects, but not many talk of dreaming and here I am, called to and answering. Where will it take me?

And next time I dream the lottery numbers, will I be able to remember more than one? (and yes, that number did come up the following night)

Blood and Frost under the Full Moon

Another one of those nights when I sit here at the keyboard and I just start typing, waiting for something to appear, something to start pouring out. I am tired. Today was just an ordinary day. Nothing interesting, no exciting thoughts.

I would like to talk about my full moon dreamboard but I have not scanned it in yet and without showing it there seems little point.

So lets talk about the previous one!

Well blogger is playing up and won't let me upload the photos again but I posted them before with the full moon dreamboard tag.

The colours were dark. Night skies. Lots of sky. Lightning and a blasted tree. That all kind of fits with the hard month it has been. The stones on the hill are a solid deep foundation - something I have and sooo had to draw on to get me through. The kite is flying high with my dreams and the fox is skulking around, treading carefully, oh I wish I had been more like that fox. And the tai chi folks? peace and calm. I also included words 'this way to the future', 'the way' and 'wyrd'. Now they just seem to mean to me, that this is the right path, a hard one, get through it. Not sure about the bottles or the plough constellation.....

So what do I have this month? Brightly coloured paper candle lanterns floating on water. Peacock feathers arranged in a circling pattern. A field perched on the edge of a cliff in an arid, epic landscape. Ancient ruins in a dry landscape. Ancient ruins somewhere else, maybe near the sea. A young person, lying on the ground, surrounded by chalk lines and candles as part of a Venezuelan rejuvenation ritual that is part of the Maria Lionza cult. I also have the words begin and discover.

I really like this dreamboard. If this is my month to come, then it is a more comfy month in some ways. Beauty, serenity, rejuvenation, beginnings, discoveries, oases's of discovery in apparently bleak landscapes. OK, so maybe not an easy month, but with any luck it will be a month where I have beauty and serenity, even if the circumstances around me are a little less than fertile. And the peacock feathers? No idea, apart from that they are very, very beautiful....

I look forward to re-interpreting my Dreamboard at the end of the month and seeing what it says to me then, with the power of hind sight.....

Some Happy

I am a bit behind with my Happy book so have a couple of ads that made me smile instead!





Now I have never had Beroca but I do love both of these ads!

BIG and small

Now we all know about gremlins that stop us from doing things. Now sometimes we find ourselves in situations where it is not gremlins stopping us but other aspects of ourselves.

I had Glandular Fever followed by Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and although gone, it rumbles on and means I just can not fill my life up as much as other folk. I go to bed early and get very little done after work.

I learnt last year that too much fun over too long a period is just as tiring as working - everything caught up and I walked away from blogging and all the things that come with it for a while. I have learnt to take on less and to graciously walk away when it all becomes too much. Mostly.

I thought BIG and the Happy Book would be alright together but I have had to stop doing so much Happy. Sometimes the Happy tasks are too BIG to fit in a weekend with BIG and still have some energy left. I am getting near the end of BIG and I am so tired now.

But is that tiredness another gremlin? Maybe, but battling on is not the way round it, battling makes it worse. I have to skirt round it, know when to push and when to let it pull. Give and take. So now, other things are going to drop a little, to help me get through BIG, because BIG has a deadline and I made a commitment and I want to finish it.

So less Happy (well, there has been less Happy for a couple of weeks). Less looking at everyone else's BIG progress and commenting. Hopefully I can catch up with that before the Ning group vanishes..... Right now, I am BIG and I am small to.....

Dream Catch Me

Soooo.... Last night I had some more dreams and I realised that I have a third type of dream.

The first is the normal, random sortings of a brain at rest, processing the detritus of the day.

The second is the dream with weight, with symbolism. The messages my brain sends me.

The third type are the dreams my brain sends to give me a fun nights sleep. My brain sends me stories. Dramatic rollicking thrillers. Unhampered by the requirement of a plot that scans from start to finish, these stories are epic. I can never remember the nuance of it all, the twists, the turns. I wish I could capture them but as soon as I wake, they float away. Poof!

I very occasionally wonder if there is a fourth type or if these other occasions fit in to one of the categories. Sometimes, very occasionally, I awake, knowing I have had a dream, of which I can remember nothing at all. But the feeling the dream leaves is so strong, so powerful. I wake up so happy, like someone has been telling me the most wonderful things, like my life is incredible and everything is alright. It is an amazing feeling as I wake.

But then, I am awake and I realise that I am in this life, this body and nothing feels particularly perfect at all. And in that moment it hurts.

I have not had this dream in a long time, but then the memory of it passes quickly, thankfully. The dream and the feelings have no reference to anchor them in time, so the memory of feeling remains but loose in my memory. Maybe that feeling is supposed to give me hope. Maybe it is all the happy neurons in my brain firing randomly as I wake up.

I feel kinda sad just talking about those dreams.

And the title of this post is from a song

Dream catch me when I fall, or else I won't come back at all....

And if you like that, go look up his version of Teardrops...

I was supposed to go and see him last year when I had my bad illness. F went without me and a friend who had been desperate, but unable to, get a ticket went instead...... Next time....

I may be slightly absent. I need a bit of a change, a bit of a rest. And I bought a new game as well..... (The Sims 3) My head hurts a bit - this week has been exhausting. Working in such a strange atmosphere is a strain. I had a chat with a colleague the other day and the conclusion was that the LP has no idea how she has messed everything up, hurt so many people so deeply and i completely oblivious to the fact that everything is rotten underneath.

And the Sims is nice and happy and very escapeful!

What Dreams May Come

I wanted to talk a bit more about my dreams today because I have more thoughts running through my head.

I slept relatively well last night, but I still dreamt. Rambling dreams that made little sense but followed some rambling story. Me switching jobs. Me somewhere doing charity work, growing mint and using it to feed the hungry.

These dreams were different to others I have talked about here. They are lesser. They are my mind wandering and repairing and thinking to itself. There may be moments of meaning but there is nothing deeper. I wake up and these sorts of dreams vanish before I can really get a grip on them, like smoke.

The other sorts of dreams do not gently whisper in my sleeping head, they shout. They shout so loud that somewhere inside the sleeping me, I am not so very asleep. Even if I don't write them down they stay with me. And they seem to be shouting more often at the moment. Maybe it is because I am taking them more seriously, maybe it is because they have much to say right now.

I am finding that the symbolism of my dreams combined with my BIG painting is making the shout even louder. The phoenix, the burning fire, the woman at the edge of a cliff watching the Northern Lights dance..... Combine this with the lovely Mel's tarot reading for me. The universe is shouting at me - hold on, just hold on, change is coming, have faith, keep the faith. Just survive this.....

Does that make any sense? Does it fit with what I have written here about things? Am I deluded? Is this just me trying to help myself survive all this? So what comes next?

Sweet Dreams?

As a child I didn't suffer from nightmares or bad dreams. My older sister did. sometimes she would float through my room like a wraith on her way to snuggle up to my parents, looking pale and teary. Sometimes I was jealous, I wanted an excuse to go snuggle up some nights when I was awake. So I would cry a few crocodile tears and go pretend I had had a nightmare on the nights I awoke in the middle and felt lonely.....

My folks house is like a circle with two staircases, each room reached from the previous, mostly. My folks room was up a fork in the staircase and my room lay at the top of the other fork. My Mum used to tell a tale of one night she came to bed and poked her head through my door on her way up. She was rather bemused to find my upper body dangling from my bed, leaving me upside down and batlike, grinning at her....

Sleep was not an issue for me as a child. i needed as much sleep as my Father and was all set to have high energy levels and a healthy sleep life. That all changed with glandular fever followed by chronic fatigue syndrome.

I remember the discussion with my parents. It's Ok to wake up really early, but if you do, could you stay in your room and quietly look at books or something? They bought me a blind to try and help me stay asleep when the bright light flowed in through my big high up dormer window.

I had a little window on the other side of my room. A tiny one, under the eaves. Light filtered green through the huge willow outside. Tendrils of clematis creeping through to say hello. In Summer the little window was always open.

Bedtime would see my Mum come and join me with a book or a story of the purple hippo that lived in the big drain up the road and who ate rosehips. Our house was often cold away from the heat of the fire in Winter so we would snuggle in bed together and share my toasty stone hotwater bottle as we took it in turns to read.

I would often have too much buzz to sleep and I perfected a technique for sleeping. One time my Mum asked me how I got to sleep, I described it and she said it sounded like a form of meditation. I think she was right. I focus on a part of my body real hard, focus on relaxing it until it tingles. I slowly move the tingle up my legs from my toes and then I work on my fingers up my arm. I never managed to get any of the rest of my body to tingle.....

In my teens, when the lurgey hit, it was a bad time for me. My doctor placed me on anti-depressants as well. I think there was much more going on with me than a physical illness. I think I lost something important at that time, all my joie de vivre fled and I have never truly regained it. That little kid who had so much energy and joy was gone.

Anyway I wasn't going to talk about all that but....

You see, I have nightmares these days. Not regularly, not that common, just occasional. I had one last night.

I was driving somewhere, in convoy with friends. Something happened and the car behind me ended up crashing and going up in flames along with it's two occupants. I knew them but I do not know who they were. I didn't see them.

Not so easy to get to sleep after that. So the day started badly with me feeling icky and it just never got better. I had no energy today to deal with my Boss or the LP. Sleep seems like a blessed escape from my life. What happened to the me, for whom sleep was a necessity,an intrusion, a small part of my life with no issues attached?

Masking

I have no idea what to write tonight. Tired tonight, I am tempted by a bath and a book. Sleep calls.

Work is pretending nothing has happened but it is there seething beneath the surface. LP is suddenly part of careful, neutral conversations only. LP doesn't join in the conversations of others as much, in the past she could be a bit on the rude side with her enthusiastic joining and then changing of the subject. Any happy banter is carefully not directed towards her at all. No careless words are uttered in her presence.

A casual observer may or may not see all this. They might see the simmering rot underneath or they may not. What I wonder is, whether or not we can get through this without it all bubbling back up to the surface. Maybe it is just a matter of time? Maybe pretense is a big part of life. Acting. Masks. Maybe will power is enough to make it as we wish.

Maybe we all desperately wish the clock was turned back. Maybe if we all wish hard enough?

Maybe if we act for long enough it will become true?

It is tiring though. Pretending is worse than working....

Dreams (of two sorts)

I am slowly learning that I need to pay more attention to my dreams. I am unsure how many I have had now that turned out to be something important, something that was trying to help me and I missed the point completely. I need to learn how to figure them out a bit better, how to use them for my advantage a little. To be able understand and heed the warning rather than understand with the power of hindsight...

So I had a dream last night, a real odd one.... which went like this...

I dreamt I was on a farm, there was something wierd going on with video cameras watching the cows and I don't really remember much of that bit. Big Brother for cows? *giggle*

Anyway, back to the important bit. I had a pair of green boots and they were stolen by two magpies. Someone gave me a new pair of green boots - they were like those slipper mocassin things - loooong green woolie things with a leather sole. It turned out the magpies were using my old boots in their nest and their were little magpie chicks in them....

Soooo any ideas? any at all? Does anyone else have really strange dreams like this? *laugh*

Oh and work - it is like the tape got turned back. Well almost. We all know now, where we stand. There is a polite pretending that mimics past behaviour enough to convince a casual bystander. But you can not take back the things you do, they sit there between people, put to one side, but not forgotten.... Where do we go from here?

You know what though? I am not sure I care any more. This last week has been so hard, has required so much energy and caused me soooo much stress! Move on now

Today I had a realisation, I want to move to Cumbria with my family. I want to live closer to my family. I couldn't move back where they live - too much on the edge of urban, and they would not move to Cornwall - too far away and it does not pull their heart strings.... but Cumbria. My Sister dreamt of moving their with her first love and my Dad always wanted to retire there....

My Sister's first love did move their and has recently separated from his wife..... I wonder if he would be a temptation? I definitely think they met too young. Her one great love (to date)

So, I would have a chance of persuading everyone to go there..... A beautiful place. F said when we were on holiday that it felt much like Cornwall - and it does - just the hills are a wee bit bigger. I asked him when I got home if he would move their with me to live with my family. He said that he would hardly stay here by himself and were my family planning on moving there? I had to be truthful and admit that no, they were not.... but..... well my Dad gave me a property paper to take home before we left.... but this will be my new daydream, now Wetherham has gone......

A Small Wish to Begin With

I feel a little lacklustre today. F came to bed late and got up early. I stayed up last night until he got in and wasn't able to stay asleep after he left again. I had a half formed plan to do a tourist day for the Happy Book but the weather was awful first thing - absolutely torrential down pour. I was thinking of visiting an area on Bodmin Moor where there is a carved standing stone, stone circles, holy wells, a quoit, a waterfall and a pool reputed to be the home of Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake. But not today - not a day I wanted to outside.

So I painted instead and I painted me.

Then I had a nap.

I have put some washing on - damp clothing from the back of the cupboard that happens to be blue. I started cutting little worms for my future rag rug last night and now I have more material to work on - well I will once it is clean and dry.

I have a vision for my bedroom.... That room I use to sleep in. I have a set of furniture inherited from my Grandma. Big furniture. A set for a big airy room in a grand house. Two wardrobes, a bed, two bedside tables and a dressing table. Dark, big, unsuitable, mouldy. I lvoe it - but not here, not now, not in my bedroom....

I want to buy a modular wardrobe system from Ikea. You fix poles between floor and ceiling and then suspend shelves, drawers and rails between them. This way everything is cleanable, air can circulate and it makes the most of space. I want to hang thin white curtains in front of them and at the window but dye them with blue first so they have three bands, white, light blue and darker blue. I want a white blind to keep the light out.

I want white walls and to paint the floor boards blue. I want a bed with storage underneath and no high footboard. I have an old trunk that went with an Uncle, generations back, to India and back. I want to remove the rust and repaint it to protect the metal. I want to sit in the big window. I want a chair and a lamp in the other corner. I want to feel like there is some space!

I want to get some nice whitish rope and make a net to put above the headboard to put little found things in. I want to make a mobile of shells, sea glass and bits of string found at the beach to hang in the window.

I want a room that is comfortable, practical, relaxing, light and airy. And I want two long thin rag rugs by each side of the bed, to warm our toes and be beautiful in their random variegated blueness

Sometimes I find the internet very furstrating. Sometimes you find a fascinating subject and a snippet of information but there is no internet trail to help you learn more. Instead all you find is a barrage of marketing info.

I decided to read a little more about the Picts. The lovely Mel has a fascination with them so I thought I would learn more. I guess specifically because I have a thing about blue hair and I wondered if their liking for dying themselves blue included their hair to. It seems scientific opinion has changed and they no longer think they used woad but copper or iron based pigments.

Woad took me to Pict and Pict took me here (got to love Wikipedia). Painted pebbles.... ooooh! This caused an um in my soul. I have been thinking of painting pebbles recently and here I am discovering that some of my ancestors would have used them for,.... well something.

I have an ancestor who left the Cairngorms for work In East Anglia, dropped the Mc from his surname and married a local farmers daughter. We Brits may have been a tribal folk but those tribes have long since forgotten their boundaries and moved around. A hodge podge. But knowing I have Scottish blood in my veins pretty much ensures I had at least one Pictish ancestor.

I also have Welsh and a good deal of fenland blood (or thereabouts) on both sides of my tree. Maybe this is why I love swamps, mires, meres, bogs, marsh, willow carr.... any of those landscaapes which are gently half water, half land....?

Anyway, the pebbles. They suspect they were used as charms. They have lines, wiggly and otherwise and dots in the main but also pentacles, crescents, circles and triangles. I failed to find out much else except that some work has been done on these symbols and there is now a believe that these are the writing of the Picts, a tribe believed to be illiterate.

The charm thing seems particularly likely as they have been used as such in this area in living memory.... Soooo cold stones or charm stones, kinda interesting!

A slightly better search shows that a charm stone has been found and registered by the Cornwall Archeaological Unit. This kind of suggests that their use was widespread across the British Isles but was more persistent in Scotland - maybe because of the link to language there?

I found an interesting old book that had been scanned and placed on the internet here. It seems there was a history of curing stones that would be placed in water and on drinkign the water the patient would be healed. Apparently they were also used in Wales (did I mention I also have Welsh ancestry?) and called Adder Beads or Snake Stones.

I might have to paint some stones, rather than just think about it....

Snippets

Ok so snippets tonight - I am tired and don't have much to say. I think enough has been said already this week, in oh so many ways.

I looked up symbolism of the phoenix this evening. Apparently Arabian phoenix's sang - they sang songs so lovely that the Sun God himself would pause to listen. My phoenix is singing. I have no idea why my phoenix is singing, where that idea came from or what it means. I do know that Arabian Phoenix's are supposed to be the King of all Birds and it symbolises the rebirth of the sun. I guess it's presence in my painting can only be good.... I know times are bad.

We got a dehumidifier the other day and already the lounge feels warmer - but we have a loooong way to go with drying out our home. I wonder how far ranging the benefits will be?

A colleague out of the blue, started telling me about a knotted rope keyring they had made. They showed me it and I realised it was one of the knots in the knot books I bought. I never got round to really making any of them but this little bolt from the blue made me think I should have another look - after all I have plenty of things to use.

Another little thing is that there is a felting course - a short one with chats - it overlaps with BIG and costs more than the price of a book on felting. I also want to do rag rug making before felting - I only need to buy hessian and a couple of cheap tools to do it. I might also buy a new cutting mat, a decent rotary cutter and one of those wide cutting rulers - maybe. But I sooooo want to do the rug thing. I want those rugs - in my newly decorated bedroom (maybe it will be decorated by the time I finish the rugs.....

And there we go - that is quite enough for this week. May tomorrow be a new and better day that sees the start of a new and better week!

Wild Wind Blow

It is a wild and windy day. The sort of day that when you at the online weather, the wind box is coloured red. Plastic bags fly in the wind. Anything not tied down may move.

It reminds me of a story I heard. This guy was doing his doctorate, studying the movement of rocks in a river in Wales. He painted all these rocks different colours and everyday, he went to measure them and see if any of them had moved. Day after day, they stubbornly stayed put. Until one day there was a storm. After the storm he went to see if his rocks had moved. They finally had. Every single one of them had vanished and he never found a single one.

I got home and the wind was calling me. I grabbed Little Dog and hopped in the car. We went to the top of the nearby Big Hill. It was dark but dry and a tiny sliver of moon peeked from behind the clouds to gild the puddles. The wind blew my hair behind me like streamers. Little Dog ran around in circles, sniffing.

I reached the top and stood, fully in the wind now, arms wide open and I prayed. I asked to be swept clean, I asked to be renewed, I asked that if my dream of my new life was too big, to help show me what version I should be pursuing. I asked for renewal.

The lights of the towns below glinted. Their brilliance gave the granite blocks a gentle glow. And still the wind blew.

Then we returned to the car and just as we had settled inside the heavens opened for a few moments. The rain vanished as quick as it came and the moon returned.

For the first night in days, Little Dog is sitting with me on the sofa, maybe the wind blew away her fear of a stray firework....

I am tired, so tired after this week. I don't think I have been sleeping that well but I think I will sleep well tonight. I saw a penny this morning and picked it up. Luck meant I had a Boss and LP free day. Renewal begins with rest.

Flames That Burn

I started writing a post about the LP. About my frustration. About my general confusion as to why. About my hurt. About my sorrow.

I thought we were friends. I honestly did. Monday first thing, I would have she was trustworthy and a good person. It seems I was wrong on all those points. I knew she was naive and that is still true. It seems she expected to do what she did and still expect us to feel comfortable with her. We don't, we feel we have to watch every word. If she chooses not to join in general office chit chat, that is not our fault. I guess I really did not see the extent of her self-centred hypocrisy. I guess it suited her to be my friend for a while.

She left early today but generally it was a miserable and stressful day. She has done this. To us and herself. And I am sad and unhappy. How long is this going to take to settle down? Where do we go from here? I wonder if long term, we can all work together. Us three form such an uncomfortable triangle. One of us is the Boss, another has alienated her colleagues and then there is me.

I came home and painted, painted to express something sparked. I choose red, yellow, orange, pinky purple and blue and somehow as I painted it all turned red. So I scratched in flames. Then the painting told me phoenix, so I drew a phoenix, wings spread, beak skyward. Then I realised the phoenix was singing. Then I felt spent. My emotions and the paint have told me things I did not expect - a message. I will rise from the flames, I will sing. All shall be fine. For the birth of a phoenix is a joyful thing.

I gave LP a second chance after all the events of last year. I guess I was not wrong in what I thought last year and I am not wrong about my Boss.... I guess this is both of them at their very worst. I hope that their very best starts to shine through soon.... or they become a part of my past rather than my present or future.

Practice

I don't have much to say or many thoughts on my mind tonight. The day has been fine. The quiet after the storm. Uncomfortable with lingering traces of electricity.

One thing painting BIG is teaching me is that you need to practice to fix a shape in your head to understand it. I need to look at something hard and draw it in a variety of ways to get a fix on it. I can't draw faces or bodies because I have not sat down with the real thing or a picture and practiced. I don't really understand the form.

Thinking about it, there is only one form that I have practiced, over and over, well two. I used to draw celtic knots but I used a ruler for them, being as how they were precise, detailed forms, dependent on their geometry to work. The other was horses.

I loved horses. I drew them for fun, copying pictures from magazines. I rode as well and also worked up the local stables for the love of horses and extra free rides. I even used to set up jumps in the garden and pretend to be a horse. My Mum still finds that amusing....

There was one picture I did of a horse. I think it was the one I was most proud of. I made a discovery. I learned how to shade things in white. I realised that white was all colours, so if you shade a horse with all sorts of colours, without getting too bright, it can make it look white. It was awesome....

There seem to be a lot of horses turning up in BIG. Maybe I should paint some too. Or maybe I should take what I learnt from painting them and apply it to something else... Practice so I can do a decent job of painting it...

Why Do Plots Have to Get Thicker?

OK... so i know this blog seems to be much more full of navel gazing and general grumpiness than my old one but hey..... If you don't like it, be warned this is a grumpy post!

Work again.....

I thought I had a handle on the Boss situation and had resolved my issues with the LP (Little Princess) but just as I thought I had, it all ups and changes again. And I am cross.

Historically my relationship with LP has been troubled. I often felt like she was trouble making and the way my Boss dealt with us encouraged conflict. I used to be good mates with my Boss until things began to change. It began to look as if all the problems with LP were the result of my Boss. My Boss was also being very unpleasant to me..

Eventually a little group of four of us sat down and compared notes and we were able to see the games my Boss had played with us. Things began to get better at work for me then. My Boss was left out in the cold. After a while she responded to this by having it out with me and this conversation was good because I was able to point out how much of the problem was due to the way she was with me. Things began to get much better.

I still can't resist talking about my Boss though - human - and not always liking everything but that hard edge to it all was gone. I even said to the LP early today that I was feeling much happier because things seemed so much better. She looked momentarily uncomfortable and I thought little of it.

My Boss sat me down today and was really cross. She said she had been hearing things again and she had thought it had all stopped and if it happened again she would be taking it to HR. I was somewhat gob smacked to say the least and we spent some time talking.

LP had been stirring. A lot.

I don't know what is up with her but she has been funny for a few days. Last week a colleague who is poorly and under considerable stress right now, snapped at us both. LP took it to our Boss, which surprised me. My Boss asked me what had happened and I downplayed it, because the fact the colleague was stressed was sooooo..... Not a common occurence at all. I said I didn't want her to have a word with them and LP backed down shortly after.

Today LP made a brave and edgy fashion choice, not likely to go without notice in the male environment we work in - even if just because women tend to compete a little in places like this! Another colleague bought it up jokingly and I got sucked in to the conversation. Then another colleague made a comment and that was it.... Off to the Boss again. Except this time there was a lot of bitching about me and things I had said about my Boss and the job.

I was very, very pissed off. Some of the things being bought up were out of context. Some of the conversations were badly interpreted - they had never been nasty - just innocent job orientated chats. Other things were things that both I and the LP had said at different times! (not that I was going to say that to my Boss) And all this stuff could only have come from her.

Another of my colleague was given a chat today as well for the same reasons and he denied their was any problem as well. Neither of us backed down so once my Boss calmed down she was open to things - like that LP is seriously trying to cause trouble. Having within the last week, complained about three different close colleagues (everyone who sits anywhere near her) and a colleague from another department.

I also made it clear that she often makes mistakes and I clear up quietly behind her without making a thing of it or getting her in to trouble. There was mention of her not liking being told what to do - I vehemently denied that I tell her to do anything and said that for a long time I had been very careful to give her a choice of the duties we had to so we both knew which ones we should do but I had not told her to do anything or gone and done everything myself.

So.... My fragile and recent friendship with LP is in tatters and I am very, very cross with her. My colleague is too. The third colleague has no idea LP tried to get them in to trouble as well and I am not about to say. The thing is, it is all sooo pointless! What did she hope to achieve? How did she expect it to be after? Did she expect me to just take it? I know she would have had no idea of the HR threat but all the same, getting colleagues in to trouble is not something you should do on a whim!

Now I feel like I have to watch everything I say to her. I sure do not trust her.

I have no idea where things will go from here. But I don't think I am going to stop covering for her - I just don't like the unpleasantness of not covering for her mistakes a bit.

But today bought back a dream from a few weeks a go that I puzzled over and now wish I had written down. What I can remember was that there were three snakes. Two had been tamed and were no longer dangerous to me (no venom left I guess). The third was still dangerous. I assumed the dangerous snake was my Boss. Now I know different - the two tamed snakes (for now at least) are my Boss and S's Mum who recently buried the hatchet. I guess the third is LP and that she is done hiding in the grass.

but what now? The close team we formed when it all came out is slowly falling apart - LP is back to being difficult, one colleague is ill and growing increasing stressed and unhappy - he is getting grumpier for sure. And now I have to be so careful what I say to the fourth, because I do not wish to cause any more trouble to rain down on us both....

And I am still cross!

Green Witch

Last week as part of BIG, I painted this painting. (Some of this has been previously written, sorry for repitition)


It is based on a memory, or a half memory / half story. I talk when I am tired, mostly about nothing, sometimes I get repetitive. As a young child, my family was driving back from somewhere at night. I was resisting sleep. The moon was full and I started to talk.

'That's my friend Moon that is. Can you see my friend moon? I love my friend moon.' and on and on. I think I half drove my folks crazy and half amused them.

And so this I painted. My childlike me has moved from the car and is alone with a blanket in some vegetation. I am not surprised by the blue hair, after all, I am fully aware of my love affair with blue hair. I even remember how that started.

When I was putting myself back together after my breakdown, aged 21, I read a book called Stepping in to the Magic by Gill Edwards. A great book. She proposes that we have a higher self and a basic self (as best I remember) with guided meditations to meet them (amongst a lot more). I met Scrutius, the mole who is my Basic self - he searches for hidden treasure and I gave him a fantastic pair of winged pink glasses a la Dame Edna. My higher self was a blue parrot spirit called Anyol. In human form she has long wild blue hair....


I should re-read this book and redo it to. I am not sure if these are permanent features of me or if they are likely to change....

but the green skin?

The only thing I do know is that I drew a lady with green skin on my soul armour page of my soul journal and all of a sudden it is very clear that she is me. The same me as the green skinned girl.


So this week we have to explore an aspect of our previous painting. Ask a question and using painting to answer it. So I wanted to find out what this green meant to me. I filled my pallet with six different greens. I slopped it on to make a beautiful background and then painted on top in more green and this is what I got.


I knew spirals would be in as they were the first thing to pop into my head. Then a tree. But the tree wanted to be more symbolic and they also drew on celtic knotwork with entwined strands. Then, the idea of a green man but he turned out to not be a face, but a body with his green lady. They are mere suggestions in the green, crude. Then they got vegetation and more spirals and then the second lady tree and the spiral clouds.

I will take another picture once it is dry and I can move it somewhere with better light....

So what does this mean? Oh that is sooo clear to me now. Green is the colour of life, chaotic, messy, verdant life. It is the colour of my spirituality. My Goddess and her consort, amongst the trees and other plants. It is spirals and knotwork, spiraling and knotty life..... It is who I am.

I was claimed by my Goddess from the beginning. I was a witch before I was born. I am.

I should have no doubt.

I claimed the moon as friend when I was tiny. I wrote stories of Father Sun and Mother earth in my teens. The biggest signs of who I was before I even knew what a pagan was.

Soooo....

This brings a new question. I know traditionally there has been a two tier system in wicca - hereditary and non-hereditary. I always wondered about the lost hereditary witches - I wonder if I might be one of them? There is something in my family - acertain something that seems to have slid down the tree, probably from my Mum's Fathers side. And that says it all, a generation with no women born to the family. A hard time with deaths before they should have happened and a broken family.

My Mum is no witch but she has a healing touch and sometimes, with an uncomfortable look on her face, she admits to me that sometimes she knows things. With her Dad dying in her teams, a few years after he separated from her Mum, what contact would she have had with her paternal Grandma? If she had been a witch, what could she ever have said?

But it doesn't matter. I am sure I am a hereditary witch - or at least that I was in one of my witchy lives. Because that is what this painting tells. I am a past life witch. I have no idea how close to the heart of the spiral I will step in this life, but it is my choice, my Goddess walks with me but the degree to which I involve her in my life is my choice. And I choose her, just like she chose me so many lives ago.

I should believe.

Learning Life's Lessons

I realised something yesterday, as I was lying in bed waiting to go to sleep. Be warned this is dull, self-interested stuff that it is useful for me to write but you really may wish to skip reading...

I realised the uncomfortable root of my sometime problems with the Little Princess.

Let's back track a bit. I believe that lessons in life keep coming back until we get it. They probably don't look exactly the same and we don't neccessarily have to consciously solve the problem, just get it right enough to move on....

So, one big theme in my life is the relationship with my sister. Time has sorted out that problem. We are no longer kids on the same path through school being cared for by the same parents. We no longer need to be treated the same. Our lives are so different that being treated differently upsets no ones views of equality. My sister and I have reached a point where we can pretty much be friends and all is good, although the scars of it all are probably something we are each still dealing with in our own way. I know I am.

So the root of the problem was that we were chalk and cheese but my parents tried to treat us fairly and equally. This was kind of hard with such different kids. They played down my successes and pushed my sister. One thing I can think of that would have been very hard for her was that she didn't make her grades for her Uni offer. My sister was upset and would have left it but my Mum spent most of the day ringing around for places with spaces that would except her grades. My sister went to Uni but struggled all the way through and eventually got pregnant. She gained a biology degree from a teacher training college having failed her teaching practice.

They must have been some painful and difficult years, full of struggle and lack of confidence. I think my Mum later came to the conclusion that she shouldn't have done it for her, if she hadn't been able to do it herself, then she was not ready for Uni. I think, for my Sister, dealing with her lack of grades at the time rather than being pushed on might have been better, although on the surface it would have seemed harder but better in the long run.

Anyway.... back to me and right now. What on earth does this all have to do with now.

My Boss has two members of staff, supposedly doing exactly the same role. Myself and the Little Princess. We actually get on well these days, mostly. My Boss mostly tried to treat us equal. This is a lie though, she says she does, but she doesn't.

I ask for leave, I get a grumble about being tricky at month end or making sure others in the team are alright with it before she takes my form. The Little Princess asks for three weeks leave in a four week period and my Boss is sweetness and light and encourages her to take the worst possible days, making my life as difficult as possible.

There is also another uncomfortable cycle. We have one main job that takes up most of our time but a few other tasks that can be either irritating or a nice break from our main task. The Little Princess is not always on the ball about doing them so I used to just get on and do them. At some point this began to cause problems. I guess she got bored and said something to our Boss or our Boss was irritated by the fact that the Little Princess could not cover for me. So I had to train her. She never took notes and would tend to forget things in between times of doing them making it harder.... This meant I often had to keep telling her how to do things, redo them. Sometimes she didn't want to do them so I would end up doing them while my Boss was absent... This is all some time ago.

She can do all of our shared tasks now though but there are still issues here. For instance she can go days with out logging a query whereas I log quite a few. Occasionally a task gets done wrong - she may have done it many times with someone else and it been done right but she goes and does it by herself and I look back and find a mistake - not a single error but something systematic that indicates a problem with her understanding. I used to take these to my Boss, these days I quietly cover for her and try to avoid causing trouble.

You see way back when, my Boss would tell me that I was senior to the Little Princess and that I should keep an eye on her and had permission to get her to do things. Unfortunately this was not what my Boss was telling the Little Princess. She would be telling her that we were equal. If she had been away she would apparently ask the Little Princess on her return, how I had been.... The balance of equality shifts depending on how my Boss is feeling about the pair of us and is hard to predict.... So I stopped playing that game.

Of the things to be done, I ask the Little Princess, do you want to do this or this. I tend to do this while my Boss is out of the room so that we both know which tasks we are doing without any interference. The Little Princess knows she needs to do stuff, because if the balance is in my favour, then she would get told off for doing nothing. By asking and divvying it up, I am neither doing everything or nothing, neither taking control or being subordinate.

What sparked my irritation with the Little Princess off this week is that she tried to get one of my colleagues in to trouble. He had been ill and was tired and stressed and unusually he snapped at the pair of us, mostly at me. It wasn't good but it wasn't really anything to get stressed about. He is a good guy and these things happen once in a blue moon. The Little Princess told our Boss, so then I had to say what had happened but I made it clear I was not upset and did not want anything said to my colleague. The Little Princess then also backed down but I think she was a little teasy about it.

I didn't particularly like what she did - but then I have been on the tail end of it, she never has. She has previously complained about me and I know that it results in a severe full on bollocking from my Boss the next time there is a suitable level of pissed off-ness buolt up towards me. She might not be aware what complaining about someone gives my Boss the ammo to do.... Naive.

So there is one task I still do and do not share with the Little Princess. It is dull, time consuming and requires some background knowledge of excel. I did give her some training once but she wrote no notes, asked no questions, said that seems easy enough and went back to her desk and never got involved with it again.

She randomly asked one day if she could learn to do it and my Boss bought this up yesterday. I have not doen it since she asked and won't do it until the Little Princess is on leave next, so I am going to have to train her without actually doing it. Now I am teasy because I trained her before but she never really wanted to do it and I am not sure she has the background knowledge to get it easily but if I fail to train her, will I be in trouble? If she gets frustrated with my training, will I be in trouble? Probably. It will be my lack, not hers.

I had a little chat with a colleague and he pointed out that it probably was my Boss that the sudden desire for her to learn this task originated with, not the Little Princess herself. They also pointed out that I should write a procedure so she can not get away with blaming my training because she has it all in writing, with screen prints.... Good idea - I shall do that.

My Boss is playing us. Again. She is unconsciously tapping in to the dodgy relationship with my Sister but in a worse way, she is maliciously doing it. I guess I have to prove that I have learnt this lesson - not letting it dent my self condfidence, not letting myself behave badly. I am going to be me without rubbing it in her face, not that I have.

When it comes down to it, this has to be just as hard for the Little Princess, her self condfidence is being knocked by comparisons to me. Just as my sister was. She is being pushed further than she should because I am able. Whether she realises it or not, this is not a good place for her either. My Boss is damaging us both with this game.

So what am I going to do? Exactly as my Boss asks but in the nicest way I can to help my colleague actually learn it. It is not her fault she doesn't have much experience with Excel or that this has been handled in an unpleasant way. She is capable of following instructions to get the job done and if it is writing, then I can not take the blame for any mistake she makes. I support her, but ultimately we all stand or fall by our own merits. Who knows which attempt to cover for her will fail?

But then it doesn't really matter. My Boss likes her more than she likes me but she needs me more. If I can deal with this recycling of old isues in a graceful and loving way, hopefully I get to move on....

This job sure has made me learn a lot. These last few years have been tough. Maybe my life gets to turn around soon.

Grump

I am tired and grumpy. My stomach has been a little unhappy. I went to work today and was grumpy, tired, but productive. Definitely grumpy.

I would go to bed, but it is just after 7 and I know I won't sleep through the night if I do. SO I get to wait and be grumpy.

Little Dog is unhappy and on drugs. Bangs and whizzes in the night. She is on drugs. It seems science has moved on and sedatives are no longer used on scared pets. They use different things to make them less nervous. Unfortunately my little hound is soooo scared that they have a limited effect....

I think it is time to go....

Storm in a Teacup

OK, so more dull maunderings about work....

Last week my Boss apparently had several meetings with their Boss and was seen crying and very upset afterwards. Milking the pity. Dropping hints of doom. Some of my colleagues were set very on edge by all of this... Not surprising after the year we have had. Rumours start to fly. All because my Boss failed to be professional.

Today we finally found out why. Boss's Boss is moving. My Boss gets a new Boss. My Boss informed us of who it would be and hte upset started to make sense. My Boss really does not like the new Boss.

I could have laughed. I had wondered if it were to be a big attention seeking fuss over nothing.... I am not saying there will not be an effect on us, I am sure there will. It could be a good effect. It could take months, even years. It really might not be bad for us at all. New Boss's Boss is not one to take any s*** that's for sure, but I have never ever had a problem....

So ironic really. My Boss losing their cool because they are getting a new Boss they don't like. Given everything they have put me through, it feels a little like karma.... I await with interest to see how this all pans out.

The worst that can happen for me is that I lose my job and I am not really phased by that thought. Only the loss of money would be an issue. I can keep my friends. In some ways losing my job would be like the world giving me a biiiiig sign saying, time to get out of here.


Anyway, i am so glad I did not let my Boss's rumours of dooms get me down.

Time of my Life

So..... As Connie has posted, there is a lot going on this November and as much fun as it sounds, just like her, i don't feel like I want or have to do everything. I am really enjoying BIG, mostly, some times it is tough but I so want this.... I am also enjoying the Happy Book with Jamie Ridler but following that a little less thoroughly.

This week for instance is a problem for me - I have a bad memory so remembering which lines in books I loved when I read them before is tricky! This task is one that would be much, much better for me to do gradually over time. The books I am reading at the moment don't lend themselves to lines for the Happy Book either - the Queen Mum's biography and a teen vampire book...

I do however have a whole bunch of projects of my own that are a little on hold. I want to dedicate my time to BIG. This holiday season is going to see few of my family receiving birthday and Christmas presents that I have made..... I just can't face that much jewellery....

I want to make rag rugs, learn to crochet and make felt. I want to paint more silk scarves. I want to make a HAPPY freaky cuddly toy. I want to draw some isolated lines of my body in bright colour. I want to experiment with some filler I have on pieces of small wood board that were excess packaging at work. I want to paint layers of paint on to different textures and then scrap and sand......

The first week of BIG, I wanted to do every exercise a gazillion times. I was very conscious of my lack of recent painting experience and felt that I needed more dedicated time to relax in to BIG. This week I have no leave and the clock change has left me drained. I dedicated Sunday and I have a painting for this week's task but how much do I need to do?

I contribute to all the discussions, comment on blog posts and pictures and am fully part of the process.... but how much painting do I need to do? I think I need to start another one for this week to keep in the flow but I have no idea what... Maybe I should just turn up at the blank page and see what happens.....

Animal Magic

I have been trying to think of memories.....

As a kid, I didn't really fit at school. I was often the one in the playground by myself. I remember I used to spend a lot of time on the edge of the playground. There was a steep bank covered in grasses and I used to stand there and catch crickets. I would hold them in my cupped hands and peek at them for a bit before letting them go. I was no older than seven.

At my next school, I used to catch tadpoles. Gently cupped in handfuls of water before being released.

I remember a holiday with F. We went to Lanzarote and there was a swarm of locusts there. We found them in a high hanging valley. At the hanging end, there was a steep drop off, which the road zig zagged down. The locusts were bright pink and the swarm was flying off this drop off. I can't really describe the sight....

Another moment of insect awe occurred on an Autumn day, walking across wet grass at school. Every step caused a cloud of daddy long legs to take flight......

I remember one time at a beach as a kid - I was picking up handfuls of sand. I was most surprised to find one handful of sand contained a flat fish. A little tiny fish. I was in awe for a little while before I let it go. I spent the rest of our time on the beach looking for another one.

My folks were bell ringers and I spent a lot of time in churches. One time I was poking around in a dusty forgotten corner. It was dusk. I found a collection of flower arranging materials in a corner. There was a large glass vase. In the bottom there was a patch of furry mould. Being the sort of child I was, I picked up the mould. I was very, very startled when it moved and a head appeared. It sat there a while before picking itself up and flying off. Not many people get to hold a bat I guess.

My parents house is in the country. There used to be an old lean too conservatory, with a vine in it. Our old collie was an outdoor dog and he had a bed in there, amongst the bikes and other things. The door was always open. Sometimes birds would fly in. I would go and catch them in my hands, carry them outside and release them.

One time I was sat in my room and I could hear a lot of tweeting, very loud tweeting. I went to my parents room and looked out there open window. I could see a blue tit in the tree opposite and it was very intent on the hosue. There was still a lot of loud tweeting. I eventually realised that there was a blue tit in the bedroom too... I caught it and let it out the window where it rejoined it's mate and they flew off together....

Another time I was walking on the beach and I came face too face with a seal. Another I was walking in a wood at dusk (not for the cowardly) and a badge crossed my path, pausing to look at me. Magpies walk next to my car and look at me. Another, walking through maram grass on some dunes, I had an encounter with an adder (the UK's only poisonous snake), we both paused and stared before going our separate ways. Walking with F, we spotted a beautiful copper slow worm on the path and watched it for some time. I remember finding a newt by the sand pit - it had been a pond but my folks didn't like the idea of a pond with us young kids around, I never saw one there again. I used to watch the squirrels on the lawn whenever our science lessons got too dull. We sometimes go to the country park and feed the ducks and the squirrels. i love the feel of their little claws.

So many of my best memories it seems are tied up with animals. So much of what I remember. I remember doing a rain dance at school to get worms to come to the surface. I remember moving the logs in the back garden to see which insects had been making their homes there. I remember peeking at birds nests. I remember watching the bats dancing in the darkening sky above me. I remember listening to the hunting owls call in the orchard as I lay in bed. Watching the woodpeckers feed.....

I rode horses and worked at the local stables. I walked our dogs, long ranging walks, from our front door out into the English countryside. I joined the Young Farmers Club, a youth organisation for the country and competed in stock juging with them. I spent a lot of time looking at cows, sheep and pigs. There was a cow that followed me around, pigs that nibbled your feet and a cat that sat on my shoulder all the time I spent in the farm yard.

Did other children catch crickets? Did other children catch birds? Handle bats? Revel in clouds of insects? Why are these little moments the ones I recall so clearly? Why have I never realised this before?

The Green Girl and the Moon

Yesterday I painted a BIG story.


When I was a kid, and still sometimes these days too, when I a very tired and more than a little sleepy, I witter. I talk and things come out that may not make any sense at all.

One time, when I was little, we driving back from some where late at night. I was fighting sleep and my mouth went in to overdrive. I spent quite some time asking my parents if they could see my friend Moon and pointing out my friend moon to them.


So I painted this. but I ended up sleeping in grass, with a cover over me. And my skin turned green and my hair blue. The blue hair was no accident, but the skin was..... but I liked it.

but as I looked some more I realised I have seen this green person somewhere else....

Here in fact (my first art journal page ever, via Caspiana and soul journaling)
So that lady there, defending my right to create, is me. And she is fierce.

I know where the blue hair comes from. A long time ago I did some exercises from a book and discovered my higher self was a blue parrot lady / spirit. In her lady form she has blue hair and in her parrot form she is just blue....

I have loved blue hair ever since.

but green skin? what does that mean and where does that come from?

Must think on this further. I seem to have a lot of stuff to think about right now. Things are starting to move